2/23/2008

Poseur by Rachel Maude

Ah, Gossip Girl rip-offs. How I love them. And by love, I mean, of course, hate.Take Gossip Girl. Subtract almost anything risque. Add fashion design. Relocate to LA. Voila! Poseur by Rachel Maude.Poseur is the story of four very different girls, all of whom go to an exclusive LA high school. These girls (a ghetto-diva, a girly-girl, a punk, and a hippie) are foced to take a class together in which they must design their own fashion label. Hilarity attempts to ensue.The book tried to be clever (and occasionally succeeded), but it was undermined by the fact that the author can't write well. At all.The one good thing was the drawings that were scattered throughout the book (much as in Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale). The author can't write, but she can definitely draw, and the characters looked exactly as I pictured them. It makes me think that Poseur would work much better as a slightly-vacuous-but-still-entertaining graphic novel.I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that the cover is horrendous. The designer obviously hasn't read the book (Though who can blame them?), and whoever dressed the models was obviously on crack. I mean, seriously.Poseur is intended to be the first in a series.

I award Poseur a whopping... two daggers. One of them is only because of the drawings.

25 comments:

sounds like one of those books i hate----the ones where they have the "sporty" girl and the "girly" girl and the "goth/punk" girl, all of whom massively lack credibility and would also NEVER BE HANGING OUT TOGETHER IN REAL LIFE.

gossip girl *cringe* but....worse?!?! (not that i can say i've read gossip girl) when i saw Posuer at borders i almost laughed, the cover girls looked like clowns, which i'm scared of so the laugh kind of turned into this pitiful, zombie-ish moan. ya, i don't think i'll be reading that book anytime soon.

WORSE than GOSSIP GIRL? Is that even possible? I didn't think it was. I was fairly confident that as far as shallow, stupid YA novels about shallow, stupd girls, Gossip Girl was the worst. I'm horrified to find that I was wrong- not only because I hate being wrong, but because it's simply horrifying to hear that there are actually worse books than Gossip Girl available.Ugh. That cover is... horrible... and... terrifying... I know you aren't supossed to judge a book by it's cover, but that definately only works with people. With books, the cover is typically some indication of the content.

My brain is making horrid squelching noises. I must remove myself from the presence of that cover. And the novel itself. If it is anything like Gossip Girl (those books don't even deserve italics), then I would not insult air by bringing it near.

I disagree largely i believe this book was quirky and cute. A light read , yes but it had wit. The illustrations were nice. I also liked how these girls weren't like adults in teens bodies, like in Gossip girl.

I shan't disagree with your opinions, though personally, I didn't think that it was quite as bad as you say (mostly because I've never read any books of the sort, and was thus amused.) I'm just mentioning that, while I agree wholeheartedly with your cover hatred, oddly enough the ARC cover was much less scary. You could almost imagine that the characters were the ones who were actually in the book, and it was hot pink, which is always funny. Anywho, it is therefore entirely possible that the cover designer WAS on crack-- when he decided to take out the cover and mess with the outfits.

I shan't disagree with your opinions, though personally, I didn't think that it was quite as bad as you say (mostly because I've never read any books of the sort, and was thus amused.) I'm just mentioning that, while I agree wholeheartedly with your cover hatred, oddly enough the ARC cover was much less scary. You could almost imagine that the characters were the ones who were actually in the book, and it was hot pink, which is always funny. Anywho, it is therefore entirely possible that the cover designer WAS on crack-- when he decided to take out the cover and mess with the outfits.

Though many talented intellectuals have produced profound, deep, and insightful literature, after long school days of frantically swallowing information, such literature can seem daunting, didactic, and even dull. I personally beleive in two genres: that of educational literature, and that of entertainment. It is wrong to completely discount novels for immature content and elementary vocabulary. As students who can appreciate literature for its insightful view on life or for its entertainment value, nobody should be ashamed of indulging in less prestigious books. The point of Poseur was not to be a cleverly written masterpeice, it was to entertain readers. If you were not entertained or even intrigued why did you bother reading it? Books are for reading and not for scoffing at.

I bothered to read it because this is a review blog, and in order for it to remain so, books must be reviewed. Some of these reviews are going to be bad reviews. I gave Poseur a bad review not because I dislike books intended to be read for entertainment, but because it was not a very good book. There is a difference between expecting a great masterpiece of literature ad expecting good writing.

How do people even read books that look like that? Sure I always get past my discomfort of a truly unappealing book cover to read the summary, but...really? Girls can be a little more kick-ass than that. And when I say 'little' I mean a hell of a lot more. Bring on the combat boots and leave the canary yellow to Big Bird.

i read the book and it was good. it was funny. the girls in it aren't all shallow. these books are nothing like gossips girls. in gg the girls don't have to work together with people who are very different than them. the reviewer did a terrible job reviewing it. & the cover is supposed to be ugly. the girls are using a bunch of trends in the wrong ways- that's a poser.

this book was not at all bad. i read 1 chapter of gg girl and i thought it was horrible. this book is way way way x1,000 better than gg girl. i like the fact that (even thought the girls were different) they stil worked together to create a fashion label. the book cover is horrible i admit. bu just look past that and you'll see the beauty of the book.

I think Gossip Girl could use a makeover. I can see how you wouldn't like the cover, you clearly don't like taking risks in fashion and want to be just like every other spoiled girl who spends afternoons skimming through such Gossip Girl novels so they can appear "cool" and distinguished in this modern teen world. Well, I've got news. That cover is great! I would wear those outfits every day! I think gossip girl is annoying and snotty and those girl would rather be idiots who have no interest in being creative and following who they are in terms of clothing. just because people are smothered by labels doesn't mean these cool girls can't befriend in this great novel. I think gossip girl is shallow and IDIOTIC!!

Thanks for dropping in. Really.

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